Enugu Govt targets 1.2m residents for COVID-19 vaccination

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the figure represents about 50 per cent of the entire adults residing within the state.

Flagging-off the exercise and the implementation of Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) in Enugu, Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi said that the state government was committed to ensuring that all residents were fully protected against illnesses.

Ugwuanyi, who was represented by his Deputy, Mrs Cecilia Ezeilo, said that since the emergence of COVID-19, his administration had taken proactive steps to ensure protection of residents against the devastating effect of the pandemic.

“The target for this mass vaccination phase is to get, at least, 1,265,013 persons in the state vaccinated by Jan. 5, 2022.

“To achieve this, we are expanding vaccination sites to, at least, one PHC per ward, 48 secondary and two tertiary health facilities, 24 mass vaccination sites, 36 mobile vaccination vans and 15 private health facilities in the state.

“We have already trained 1,942 vaccination personnel, including vaccinators, e-recorders and validators. We have also inaugurated special teams of DSS and ICPC to ensure a vaccination card racketeering-free campaign,” he said.

On the BHCPF, the governor said that the fund was meant to substantially increase the level of financial resources to primary health care (PHC) and improve PHC services across the state.

He noted that commencement of implementation of the fund would mean that up to 291 PHCs in the state, at one per ward, would have routine access to financial resources that would benefit such PHCs in refurbishing and revitalisation activities.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr Ikechukwu Obi, urged the state health workforce to ensure that the state continued to record high rate of execution of health programmes and activities.

Obi, represented by Director of Public Health, Dr Boniface Okolo, urged people of the state to ensure that they got vaccinated.

Speaking, Dr George Ugwu, Executive Secretary, Enugu State Primary Health Care Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), said that the agency had successfully completed the first and second phases of COVID-19 vaccine rollout on a good note.

Ugwu said that with the continued support of the governor and our partners, a total of 1,942 vaccination personnel, including vaccinators, e-recorders and validators, had been trained.

“We have also inaugurated special teams of DSS and ICPC to ensure a vaccination card racketeering-free campaign.

“We wish to leverage our good performance in the first and second phases of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout to deliver the vaccines to our eligible population.

“Enugu currently leads in the South-East zone and has joined the other few states that have met all their set targets in COVID-19 vaccination rollout in the country.

“In the first phase, we vaccinated 65,703 persons with Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine, while in the second phase, 28,325 and 45,085 persons were vaccinated with Oxford Astrazeneca and Moderna vaccines respectively.

“In total, we have so far vaccinated 139,113 persons, out of whom 50,161 were fully vaccinated with both Oxford Astrazeneca and Moderna vaccines,” he said.